It’s been a while…

For one reason or another yesterday was the first chance this year I’ve had to blow the fishing cobwebs away and chuck a lure in the water so I headed down to Dorset for a late afternoon/early evening session. Conditions were forecast to be pretty benign for any decent chance of a bass, and so it turned out, but it’s been a fair few months since I’ve been…. I was just looking forward to shaking off my fishing ‘rustiness’, being out there again and checking my kit out after a few months stored up.

Walking round to a favoured area and bumped into a familiar face on this bit of coast – Bill with his dog Poppy – had a chin wag for a few minutes… Bill’s had a decent early season on the bass which was encouraging though he’d had no success today. Anyhow, we went our separate ways and I headed on round to where I wanted to start. Noticeable that the coast has changed a bit following the winter storms with some hefty landslides with rocks and boulders where they previously weren’t. Also, there was still patchy sediment in the water where it was running off the land so in places it was too coloured up but that said there were still some nice patches to fish. The picture below shows some of the land slippage…

As for the fishing I couldn’t tempt a bass out despite my hard and soft lure offerings – all it turn out to be was a wrasse-fest with them hitting both hard and soft lures with equal gusto. If nothing else they’re colourful and put a bend in the rod to get me used to feeling a fish on the line after the winter break. Here’s the close up of the little critter caught in the green flavour…

Finished fishing around 8pm and started to head back along the coast when I had bizarre encounter of the day…..met a family coming towards me – obviously not been here before who asked me politely “is there a way back up to the coastal path if we head the direction you’ve come from?”.

“100% not, I know this area well, that’s why I’m heading this way!” I respond.

“Are you sure?” the father comes back with.

“Totally”, I confirm.

“Thanks, we’ll try anyway”, he replies.

…. I left them to it – there’s only so much you can help people with…. is it me????

Arrived back at the car to discover the sole coming off of one of my wading boots so it looks like not all my kit did so well over the winter months…. the age old problem of which wading boots to buy is before me again! Must say, I’m tempted to try the 5:10 Canyoneer SAR water boots that Henry Gilbey has been testing out (see his very informative article here), not a traditional fishing wading boot but must admit when I had the kayak I was tempted to get these so maybe they could be a good option? Food for thought for sure.

Anyhow, I’ll finish up with a couple more scenic pictures from the day for you to enjoy…